Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Statement by Ambassador Valery Loshchinin of the Russian Federation to the Conference on Disarmament 19th August 2008

Unofficial Transcript

Thank you Mr. President.

I wish to congratulate you on assuming the functions of President and we wish you every possible success. You may count on the full support of the Russian delegation. We would also like to thank Christina Rocca, your distinguished predecessor and other members of the P6 team. We would also like to transmit our very best wishes and gratitude to our colleagues who would be soon completing their mission herein Geneva.

Since I have taken the floor, I would like to of course touch upon the subject, in discussion and affecting the activities of the conference. Something that attracts the attention of all states within the international community as a whole. I am speaking of the aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia and its consequences.

This is the 12th day since the aggression started; unfortunately, we have to note that instead of a serious analysis of the reason for this tragedy and a search for the ways to seek a lasting peace for the republic. The western media are continuing to whip up a frenzy of untruthful information with crudely distorts the reality especially as it affects seeking a guilty party. It would be appropriate here to look at the chronology of events.

On the 7th of August at 22:555 Georgia began its attack on South of Ossetia, under the slogan of renewing a constitutional order in the conflict zone -using force.

On the 8th of August, at twenty minutes past midnight, suffered artillery attacks and the villages of South Ossetia saw firing, this was largely from cluster munitions affecting the squares and Russian peacekeepers were hit by this, they were fired upon directly, this is particularly tragic. Georgian peacekeepers were firing upon them.

In the morning of 8th of August, the Georgian air forces, fired on civilian settlements in South Ossetia. At midday the Georgian forces partly assumed control of the capital and a number of South Ossetian villages which were literally wiped from the face of the earth which led to a large number of civilian casualties and casualties among peacekeepers. 18 peacekeepers were killed and over 70 injured. In the afternoon of that day, following all of these events, in continuing threats to the lives of Russian citizens in South Ossetia and keeping with the right to self defense, Russia sent to South Ossetia its troops to support the Russian peacekeepers and to protect the civilian population.

Georgia launched the aggression, it was responsible for the ethnic cleansing, it carried out the genocide policy and this was rejected as it should have been. It was essential to do this. Russia has basically saved people from South Ossetia from genocide. Things have to be called by their true names. I understand it is not pleasant fro everyone to hear this. This type of assessment, particularly those who prepared Georgian leadership, who sent weapons there; and who provided assistance to his regime; they tried to present it as a window to democracy in the post soviet space. If that is democracy, that’s not the kind of democracy anybody needs and of course the activities of Georgian leadership cast a shadow and on everything that we stand for, be it in the Human Rights Council, the United Nations or elsewhere. Instead of condemning the actions of Georgia, some have defended them and have accused Russia of excessive use of force and of aggression.

We hope that justice will prevail and by joint efforts, the Presidents of Russia and France were able to agree in Moscow on 12th of August on 6 principles to settle the conflict. On 18th of August, Russia began to withdraw some sections of its troops which had been sent to Georgia to strengthen the protection of the Russian peacekeepers against the Georgian aggression.

We note with concern that until now, there has been no confirmation of a full return of the Georgina troop to their original position as provided for in the principles and of course the speed of further actions will depends upon the degree to which Georgia is honest in fulfilling what is required of it. But on the basis of the information we have. Georgia is in no hurry to do that, to fulfill its obligations. We see that from the statements by the Georgina delegation at the meeting of experts. They tried to provide events in such a light that Russia is the aggressor and once again everything is turned upside down. The problem is also the fact and we feel this should be considered carefully. That during these events, the Georgian leadership, several times accuses the west and NATO of not providing necessary support and assistance to Georgian campaign. In response this is true that there were statements that Georgia would receive necessary support, it would receive military assistance and it would become stronger than it had been before the events took place. Statements of this type, I would say somebody is trying to body the clock back to the situation to before these events took place. It is not military strengthening that Georgia needs but needs to consider how to strengthen the understanding of the responsibility of Georgian leadership before the world community,. There is some need for some basic education, some culture. Work needs to be done to bring back down to earth the leadership of Georgia.

There have been reports today that the Council of NATO is meeting today in Brussels. And at this meeting, there maybe statements that for the door Georgia is open for Georgia to enter NATO. We need to think carefully about this. What could this lead to? I have already mentioned that by calling for assistance to the West and NATO, Georgia, was trying to involve a conflict of the NATO countries and Russia. Can you imagine what this would lead to? It’s extremely dangerous. If this time of proposal is indeed being made, and its difficult to conceive of this, that this will simply be not a double standards. It will simply be a lack of any standards at all.

Georgia has violated all its obligations, ensuing from its membership of international organizations It has violated the Helsinki Final Act, the code of behavior of states in the military and political sphere, the charter of European Security, humanitarian and political obligations ensuing from the council of Europe. Everywhere these set up the need for the non use of violence and a peaceful settlement of disputes. But the obligation that Georgia has taken on in connection with NATO and the European Union have been broken and these have been signed between Georgia and those organizations. A simple list of the obligations of Georgia – there is a lack of understanding on the part of Georgia that it must fulfill its obligations, we must work together to clarify this unacceptable behaviour on the part of the Georgian leadership.

In conclusion, I would like to state that Russia is working on a large scale to help refugees, to restore housing and infrastructure which was destroyed by military action sin South Ossetia. The secretariat has a press release from our mission containing detailed information on that if that is of interest to you. Copies are available.
Russia at the start decided to give 500milionrubbles and yesterday it decided to give an addition 540million. While I am speaking here, about 45million dollars to give direct assistance to refuges and the population to South Ossetia, moreover, a decision has been taken to provide 10billion rubbles which is over 400,000 dollars to restore the infrastructure and housing there. This humanitarian assistance on large scale has been given by the international community through the international committee of the Red Cross, the High Commissioner of Refugees, UNICEF and certain other UN organizations. Everyday thousands of South Ossetians, of refugees are returning to their country. Clearly the time required for restoration will be lengthy and Russia will spare no efforts to ensure that peace and security for the people of that Republic. I am being asked by my colleagues, what is to be done in this situation? How should we act? What measure can be taken? Of course we need to ensure a peaceful settlement with the support of the entire international community and I would like to recall from the 6 principles – the first is the non use of force. The primary objective now is quickly to prepare and sign and ratify a legally binding instrument on the non use of force. That document is the basis of the implementation of all of the other principles. Only that can lay the foundations for the restoration of lasting peace in the region. And that is where we need to focus all of efforts and that of our partners of NATO and the European Union in order to involve Georgia instead of seeking to involve Georgia in the military and political bloc of NATO.

I thank you.